Skip to content

Ragtime
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Ragtime Unknown - 2006

by Doctorow, E. L


About this book

Ragtime, E. L. Doctorow’s best-known novel, highlights the American melting pot and how the nation came to be what it is today. Set in the early 1900s, the story namely focuses on a wealthy family living in New Rochelle, New York, simply named Father, Mother, Mother's Younger Brother, Grandfather, and the boy. The boy, Father and Mother's young son, perhaps narrates the novel from a reminiscent adult perspective, but the omniscient narrator is never decidedly identified. The family’s turn-of-the-century journey of adaption addresses the tensions between reacting to the evolution of the era and executing revolution.

Yet Ragtime is far more than the family’s narrative. In a beautiful execution of historical fiction, the novel weaves together biographical subplots of prominent figures of the day, including J.P. Morgan, Harry Houdini, Henry Ford, Sigmund Freud, and Emma Goldman. The result: Ragtime focuses not on just the nameless or the famous, but how the two groups create history together.

Written when Vietnam was drawing to a close, Ragtime addresses issues that were affecting America at the time—from the abuse of power to racism to using sex to sell just about anything—but it also includes classic and enduring themes of morality, repression and injustice, change, and time.

Ragtime was nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel and won the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction in 1975. It also won the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award the following year. The novel was adapted for a 1981 movie and a 1998 Tony award-winning Broadway musical. Ragtime is included in TIME’s “100 Best Novels” (since 1923) and ranked 86th on Modern Library’s “100 Best” English-language novels of the 20th century.

First line

In 1902 Father built a house at the crest of the Broad-view Avenue hill in New Rochelle, New York.

First Edition Identification

Random House first published Ragtime in New York in 1975. The 276-page first editions are bound in brown cloth. First edition dust jackets state the original price of 8.95. From the first printing, 150 copies were specially bound as rare Presentation Copies, which are numbered and signed by the author. Presentation Copies have sold for up to $400.

Details

  • Title Ragtime
  • Author Doctorow, E. L
  • Binding unknown
  • Publisher Puzzle-Roca
  • Date May 1, 2006
  • ISBN 9788489746398
Back to Top

More Copies for Sale

Ragtime (Spanish Edition)
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Ragtime (Spanish Edition)

by E. L. Doctorow

  • Used
  • good
  • Paperback
Condition
Used - Good
Binding
Paperback
ISBN 13
9788489746398
ISBN 10
8489746397
Quantity Available
1
Seller
HOUSTON, Texas, United States
Seller rating:
This seller has earned a 4 of 5 Stars rating from Biblio customers.
Item Price
£24.03
FREE shipping to USA

Show Details

Description:
Puzzle-Roca, 2006-05-01. Paperback. Good.
Item Price
£24.03
FREE shipping to USA